One of my goals as a writer is to create fiction that goes beyond the art forms that have shaped my mind. To graft myself to them and construct something new. One of those forms are 80s and 90s films. We lived next to a “Superette,” a small convenience store in the middle of northern Michigan nowhere. There was a wall of VHS tapes, freshly stocked each week. I don’t know if I first saw Future Kick on VHS or if it came to me through satellite television (Cinemax, perhaps), but it stuck. Don “The Dragon” Wilson was one of my movie heroes. An actor’s actor. At that time, I was unable to separate low budget from Hollywood blockbuster. If it appeared on VHS or on television, it was fair game, didn’t matter. Movies were magic. And in those childhood days, movies were the best thing in the world, only second to books. Maybe even better. I still don’t know.

When I was brainstorming content for this thirty day series, I knew I had to include a couple trailers of influential films, images still shaking around in my battered mind. There are more, I’m sure there are more. I didn’t list Future Hunters, because I’m saving that one for a special forthcoming project. Or, Executioner on Death Row, which I can’t even find a listing for. I had nightmares about that rat scene for ages. But this one, Future Kick: androids, martial arts, evil corporations, yeah, I wanted that all to feed into Domo ArigaDIE!!! To some extent, maybe I did. ArigaDIE!!! is more colorful, has a much larger budget, but we can all dream, right? That budget doesn’t need to be fixed. If you want to imagine the book as a 90s martial arts B-movie, please do. Otherwise, give it the special treatment and throw down millions for those prosthetic limbs, the buckets of blood, the fireworks. Honestly speaking, though, I prefer practical effects. I want it to be grainy. Let’s make it dated.